


Laura Barton, Black Widow

by CaraMia



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Black Widow - Freeform, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-07
Updated: 2018-12-07
Packaged: 2019-09-13 18:24:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 930
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16897665
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CaraMia/pseuds/CaraMia
Summary: What if Natasha was not the first Black Widow to escape?





	Laura Barton, Black Widow

**Author's Note:**

> This has been sitting in my drafts for over a year. It's as done as it will ever be. I hope you enjoy! If you know of any fics that explore this idea more, I'd love to see 'em!
> 
> disclaimer: I know nothing

There was more than one Black Widow to escape the Red Room. 

Her name was not always Laura but it is the name she chooses for herself. 

She finds the circus life to be charming. It's all show and flash up front and cutthroat business in the back. In her more whimsical moments, it reminds her of herself. 

Clint is young (so is she). He is driven and passionate and Laura wants that. She yearns to understand what drives him. She understands much (betrayal and being alone) but to do something just for the joy of learning it and being good at it? She follows him as he learns archery, supplementing natural skill with hard work and she examines and explores and laughs when she manages to distract him enough that he finally misses. 

The first few years on her own she dyes her hair an endless rainbow - always bright, always eye-catching. She stops only when Clint gets the SHIELD job. 

"You'll draw enough attention for the both of us," she explains, laughing as he mourns her brown roots growing in. 

She grows to love her own skin and the feeling of being exactly as she seems. 

All Widows were killers. She never needed to kill. She turned people or just turned them around enough that they never saw her coming or going. But they made her, made sure she would bow to their will and do exactly as she was told and she did. She was one of the best. She was wily and they should've known better than to send her out alone. 

She had the practice and so, free at last, she rebuilds herself out of what pieces she has left and of what pieces she thinks will fit. Some do, others do not. 

Part of her rebuilding is Clint Barton, who she loves purely for the joy of feeling it. She never means to tell him but once she starts a thing she finishes it and telling him is so easy. 

It isn't until he's been at SHIELD for a full year that he understands. He's been briefed on potential threats and in those lists and files are words he associates with the woman he loves. He knows her story, the barest bones and some of the scarier fleshy parts. She would not marry him without making sure he knew all the scary pieces that made her. 

He does not mention it to anyone, of course. He would not be hers otherwise. He has more questions for her which she answers. 

It is enough that when he finds another Widow he sees the look in her eye and recognizes it. He lowers his bow. He makes a different call. 

Natasha is a Widow without a Room but she hides her turmoil well under a calm face. She is kept in confinement for a month, her only visitors her interrogators and Clint. 

After a month, a woman walks into the SHIELD HQ, flashes a badge that says "Special Consultant", and walks herself down to the holding area. She does not stand out. She does not want to. 

She lets herself into Natasha's cell. The women consider each other. Laura is the first to move, offering an open smile. Natasha is taken aback. 

"You are the reason," says Natasha. 

"I am the reason he knew there were other options for one such as you, yes," says Laura. She knows how to manipulate and lie and cheat and obfuscate to get what she wants but she never told Clint to give mercy to her former classmates. "I told him if he ever met a Black Widow he should run unless he could kill her." 

This is familiar ground for Natasha. She sits back, giving the impression of relaxing. To anyone who wasn't also Red Room. 

"I am not here to finish what my husband could not," Laura says, and enjoys the slight intake of breath that means she's caught Natasha by surprise. Widows frighten so easily out of their cages. "I'm here to take you out of this life, if you wish. This place will say they are your only choice. They are wrong, of course." 

Natasha knows she has more options. Laura thinks she does not know how to live outside of this, has never had a model to follow. She offers herself, Laura Barton, once a circus-performer now a joyful housewife, already knowing that Natasha will say no. The average life is not for one such as her. Laura does not argue for the beauty in an average life. Such things are not for everyone. 

All things considered, Laura is the most well-adjusted of these broken men and women. She did not choose her beginnings but she chose everything after and to her that has made all the difference. 

Laura leaves the same way she showed up: through the front door with no one the wiser. 

"Do you ever want more than this?" Clint is standing at the kitchen sink. He's supposed to be washing the dinner dishes but he's watching her instead. 

There are many possible answers (she gets restless, visits new places and becomes a new person when Clint is gone, but she always returns and is herself again and he knows and loves her all the more for returning) but there is only one answer Laura Barton would give, she knows. 

She wakes up every day and decides who she will be. For the last 15 years, she has woken up and decided to be Laura. 

"No," says Laura, and smiles when he does. 


End file.
